I had a question, put on hold for what I believe to be a false premise, claiming it is too broad. Okay, I have seen tons of similar questions, if it is too broad I would like a bit more of an explanation for how it is too broad. I edit it asking how it is too broad and giving an example of another similar question. I get no response and it stays on hold.

I believe that this is a scenario where moderator intervention would apply so I flag it, however "declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention" is the response.

Just checked an apparently the site agrees with me: "If a moderator (user with a ♦ symbol after their name) closed the question, then you may flag it for moderator attention. Again, do this only after editing and include a detailed explanation of why it should be reopened. There is more than one moderator, and moderators do reconsider their decisions." in https://stackoverflow.com/help/reopen-questions

I would like to say the duplicate message explicitly said to edit this post for reasoning on how this isn't a duplicate so I will. My point in posting it here was not relevant to the "too broad" tag even though that is what people discussed. My post was about how the help center explicitly tells people to request moderator intervention for posts mods put "on hold" when you disagree with a decision. I did that and it was declined for being not relevant to mods, hence this post. It has nothing to do with the circumstance for why my post was put on hold or if it was "too broad" or not.

If you mean this question, you can't just compare a question to a 10-year old one. If that 10-year old question got asked now, I'm 100% sure it'd been closed as too broad as well. In fact, the timeline reveals it's been tried to close that question you refer to 3 times already, it probably only exists because by chance it didn't get closed initially and got good answers
– Erik AJul 18 '19 at 14:21

@ErikA am not specifically disputing that, though I am disputing the fact that I was it not applicable to flag
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:23

Oh, declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention is a standard decline reason. Pretty much all flags asking to reopen a question get declined for that reason, since any >3K user can vote to reopen a question and a substantial edit puts it in the reopen queue, so community members are free to disagree with it being closed, even though a mod closed it initially. Mod flags are really only if you want an action only a mod can perform.
– Erik AJul 18 '19 at 14:26

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It was a mod that put it on hold and Help Center specifically says if a moderator put it on hold to flag for moderator intervention, as I quoted @ErikA
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:27

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Yeah, that clearly seems outdated to me, though I doubt it ever was common practice. But I certainly understand you didn't know that, and even might not take my word over the help center. Seems like that should be removed there.
– Erik AJul 18 '19 at 14:32

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I agree with the closure. Also, the question you linked to was just closed by another moderator.
– ZoeJul 18 '19 at 14:33

@Zoe That is fine, I am more disputing the seeming to be error in the help center. Although, I have yet to find an answer to the question, and am open to suggestions on how to rephrase it to be more clear.
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:34

@Zoe Ha, so I guess I set a precedent
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:35

I would say that your explanation is not exactly detailed... I added a comment on your question @ mentioning the mod that closed it and that it's being discussed on meta.
– Heretic MonkeyJul 18 '19 at 14:38

@AidanWelch Your question wasn't unclear. It was too broad. Often, you can't do anything about that, except narrowing the question down (doesn't seem applicable to yours), or asking it elsewhere. That elsewhere might be Software Engineering, they are more open to questions about the advantage/disadvantage of a specific approach, but I'm not sure it would be received well there too.
– Erik AJul 18 '19 at 14:38

Also, it might be considered a duplicate of this question on software engineering, though they're a little different, but be sure to research before asking for other possible duplicates
– Erik AJul 18 '19 at 14:40

@ErikA I read that a few days ago, I thought the answer might be different for specifically node.js because it is the single language I have seen with the most adoption of test frameworks
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:42

I'm not active on software engineering, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but if your question is distinct because it relates to node.js, I'd state that in the question. If you find related recent questions on Software Engineering that are well-received, that's a good indicator you're better off asking it there.
– Erik AJul 18 '19 at 14:44

So would it be fair to say(and maybe advertise when a new user asks a question) that Software Engineering should be used for higher level theory while the main site should be used for specific questions on specific components?
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:47

I do appreciate the answer, I do now see how it was too broad, but that does not relate to this question. Maybe this would be better suited to a comment of that post.
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 15:22

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It relates to the question you asked. You wanted an explanation as to why it was too broad.
– MakotoJul 18 '19 at 15:28

Not here, I wanted a discussion on what seems to me like going back on the sites own recommendations
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 15:30

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There's nothing to discuss. Your question was too broad, and it was closed. I can respect that you're dissatisfied with the fact that your question was closed, but that's not something my prose can rectify.
– MakotoJul 18 '19 at 15:37

No, the discussion is not about the question, it is how the moderators actions when a review was flagged...
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 15:38

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The flag was declined because the decision to reopen a question lies with the community (in 99% of the cases). You've done your part by coming here to Meta and making a plea for it, but honestly I see nothing else to do as far as reopening the question.
– MakotoJul 18 '19 at 15:40

I agree that the question could not be reopened, I can also see your point in that is lies with the community. But I think you should recognize that the help center specifically says you should seek moderator intervention instead of going to the community
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 15:41

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@AidanWelch No, it does not. The help center says that you should have flagged your post to explain why it should be reopened, but you asked for an explanation of why it's closed. The former is okay, the latter is not.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 15:49

I realize I said that once, that is poor phrasing as that is not what I did
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 15:59

You should not be editing your question to ask why the question is closed. You should be editing your question to narrow the scope of the question so it is not too broad, or to clarify what the question was asking, if it was misinterpreted as asking for something broader than you intended.

Likewise, mods are not there to explain to you why your posts are problematic and how you can improve them, so you should not be flagging posts to ask moderators how you should fix your question. You should be making every effort you can to improve your questions on your own, reading through the help center sections on the topic(s) at hand, and the other more general information and FAQs on meta on how to ask quality questions in order to figure out how to improve your question.

If you've done everything you can to try to address the problems with the question and it's still insufficient, you could ask on meta to explain what feedback you've gotten on your question, how you've tried to address that feedback, and why it was deemed insufficient, in an attempt to get some help in fixing your question.

Also note the existence of a single close-worthy question not being closed is not justification for your question to be reopened. There are lots of questions that merit closure that haven't been closed. The content curators are constantly falling behind the constant barrage of problematic questions, so there are always plenty that slip through the cracks.

Addendum: There are several thousand questions that get asked every day, and not nearly enough people to put eyes on each and every single one to curate them. Using any question as a defense will usually lead to it being closed as well. Much better to focus on your specific question than pointing to another question and saying, "But THAT one didn't get closed!"
– fbueckertJul 18 '19 at 14:50

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As I said in the comments and as has been pointed out, my post on here does not relate specifically to that question so 2/3 of this answer is irrelevant. And, addressing your second paragraph, as I said, you are specifically told to contact moderators when a moderator puts a question on hold if you dispute it.
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:51

Although, I would agree that I should have left that as a comment instead of an edit. The sole reason I did that was because I was not sure if it would get re-reviewed if I commented, vs if I edit-ed
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:53

@AidanWelch You asked why your flag was declined, and you've gotten an answer. Had you flagged your question to explain why your question was not in fact too broad, they would (probably) have evaluated the merits of your case and either reopened the question or declined it saying they disagreed with your argument, rather than the issue not meriting a mod flag. But you instead asked the moderator how to fix your question. That is not what mods are there for, so your flag was declined accordingly.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 14:53

@AidanWelch Intentionally doing things that you know you shouldn't be doing is generally not a good idea in general, but especially so when you're trying to get help correcting already problematic behavior. It just makes people all the less likely to want to help you when you go around knowingly doing things that you shouldn't be doing.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 14:55

No, I asked them what is wrong with my question not how to fix it. I also did not ask why my flag was declined here, that was not a question ever brought up
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:55

@Servy That is not what I said again, I did not know it was bad practice, I hadn't considered that it was...
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 14:56

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@AidanWelch Asking moderators what's wrong with your question is also not something you should be flagging them for. You could have flagged your question if you had fixed it already to explain why the question is not Too Broad, but you didn't do that, so your flag was declined. Sure, technically your "question" contains no question mark, but the implied question is why your flag was declined.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 14:58

@AidanWelch You can't say that you knowingly did something you shouldn't have, and then in response to me saying that's a bad thing, walk it back and say you didn't know it was a bad idea.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 14:59

@Servy How can I fix something if I have no idea what the issue is? Say I were a moderator and I closed a question you asked for being primarily opinion based, say you did not consider it opinion based and you asked how it was and I did not respond. Would that not be an appropriate time to ask for another moderator to intervene, especially if the help center indicates you should?
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 15:01

@Servy I said I agree that I made a poor decision, I never indicated I agreed then...
– Aidan WelchJul 18 '19 at 15:01

@AidanWelch No, it's not appropriate for you to be flagging posts to ask people questions about why it's problematic. I was rather explicit about that in my answer. Additionally the help center is not telling you to flag posts to ask moderators why your post is problematic, it's telling you to flag posts closed by a moderator if you have fixed them to address the problems so it can be reopened. It is your responsibility to fix your own posts, not other people's responsibility to fix them for you, or tell you how to fix them.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 15:05

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@AidanWelch Saying that you can't explain why the question isn't too broad because you don't understand why it's too broad doesn't make the flag any more appropriate. That you can't do something doesn't make it okay to do something else that's prohibited instead. You can't explain why your question isn't Too Broad until you understand why it's too broad. That's certainly true, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not appropriate to flag posts to ask why they're problematic. It's not the moderator's job to tutor you on what a good question is and why yours is problematic.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 15:26

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@AidanWelch Yes, yes it is the same. It's grammatically different, but it's a different phrasing of the same fundamental behavior. But more importantly, both "asking a moderator a question" and "giving the moderator the opportunity to answer a question that is implied but not asked" are both not, "explaining to the moderator why a question should be reopened". As for linking to another open question, my answer explains why that is in no way an explanation of why a given question is not Too Broad.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 16:01

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@AidanWelch Saying, "there is another question that is too broad that isn't closed" is not explaining why your question isn't Too Broad. You did not explain why your question should not be closed, you just pointed out another question that needed to be closed.
– ServyJul 18 '19 at 16:59